Monthly Archives: January 2011

A lot of the results have been presented in a way that makes the lib-dem candidate look as if he did as well in this election as he did in the last, approximately. But this is clearly not the case. So let's analyse them properly. I ignore the 'percentage of people who voted figures' becuase they aren't needed in a first-past the post system, and because they were severely misleading.

The electorate is given as 72,788

The turn out is given as 48.1%. This means that abstentions were 51.9%.
The candidates were:

Now everything becomes clear: nearly ten thousand people who did vote in May didn't vote this time round ((51.9 minus 38.4) divided by 100 multiplied by 72788). This is an extremely important part of the result; it shows that people are not happy with the choices on offer, with the political process generally, etc.

Of the three top parties:
The labour party drew 532 more votes, about 37% (532 divided by 14186 times a hundred, if you're not good at maths), which is not to be sneezed at. and the support of a higher percentage of the electorate, as well as a higher percentage of the non-abstentions. This is clearly a landslide victory.

The lib-dems lost 2923 votes, about 20% (2923 divided by 14083 times a hundred). Clearly they lost support among the electorate as a whole, even if their share of the votes cast seemed good.

The conservatives lost big time. A drop in 7292 votes, more than 60% (7292 divided by 11773 times a hundred). Maybe the supporters who voted for them are in the increase in abstentions, maybe some conservative voters switched to lib-dem.

So, this by-election is a very strong vote of no-confidence in the conservative party, and in the coalition, and demonstrates a clear reduction in support for the lib-dems. And that was with a labour scandal, a complete unknown filling the labour candidacy and a larger number of candidates to split the vote…